The 31-year-old Palestinian, who dismembered the statue of the Virgin late  on December 1 in the Piazzale Giovannacci, is being held in the Gradisca D’Isonzo repatriation centre in Gorizia, northeastern Italy, waiting for deportation procedures to be completed.
The Islamic iconoclast intentionally stoned the head and hands of the statue to sever them from the body of the historic sculpture following the Koranic injunction to cast “terror into the hearts of the unbelievers; so strike the necks and strike every finger of them!” (8:12)
Police launched a search and arrested the migrant in the early hours of the morning after residents who spotted the vandalism called for help and gave the police a description of the vandal.

Pope Francis led Mass November 29 Sunday. In his homily he noted that it “is the season for remembering” God’s closeness, a time to “be watchful” so that we can escape the “slumber of mediocrity” and the “slumber of indifference.”
The Holy Father concelebrat-ed the service with the new cardinals he created Consistory, marking the start of Advent. Last evening, the Pope and the cardi-nals visited Benedict XVI.
In the area of St Peter’s Basilica overlooking the Altar of the Chair, in addition to the cardinals, new and old, there were about a hundred faithful, linked in some way to the new cardinals. All those present wore medical masks and kept the distance required by regulations related to the pandemic.
In his homily the Pope also stressed the importance of Advent, the start of the liturgical year, in which “we need to recognize God’s closeness and to say to him: ‘Come close to us once more!’ […] Let us make our own the traditional Advent prayer: ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ (Rev 22:20).
“Why should we waste time complaining about the night, when the light of day awaits us?” Why should we look for ‘patrons’ to help advance our career? All these things pass away. Be watchful, the Lord tells us.” –AsianNews

The Vatican is stepping up its alliance with a pan-Islamic organization alleged to have provided “material support” to al-Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist operation as well as to have funded terrorism and the global propagation of hardline Wahhabi Islam.
As part of recent efforts at re-branding its image through “religious diplomacy,” the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League (MWL) hosted the Vatican’s envoy to the United Nations (U.N.) for a book presentation on interreligious dialogue.
Archbishop Ivan Jurkoviè, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the U.N. in Geneva, delivered a keynote address in Jeddah on the book The Promotion of Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue as an Instrument for Peace and Fraternity, stressing the Vatican’s developing relationship that began under Pope Francis in 2017.
Making no mention of Christ or the gospel, Jurkoviè instead extolled the “polychromatic light of religions” that illuminates this world and “does not contrast the individual colours by putting them in antithesis to one another; rather, it combines them in a non-conflictual vision.”

Bishops in Switzerland lamented a record exodus of Catholics from the Church in 2019. The new figures, released on Nov. 19, revealed that the Catholic Church lost 31,772 members in 2019 – equivalent to 1.1% of the total membership of the Catholic Church in Switzerland. This marked a 25% increase on the previous year, when 25,366 people left.

On November 10, Al Jazeera posted a breathtaking headline: “ISIS-linked attackers behead 50 people in northern Mozambique.” The subhead was equally horrifying: “Witnesses say the assailants herded victims onto a football pitch in the village of Muatide where the killings were carried out.”
In the midst of a pandemic, and in the throes of a highly contested US presidential election, it isn’t surprising to encounter dis-concerting news headlines. But the gruesome description of innocent people “herded” to their death on a soccer field, where they were systematically decapitated and dismembered, seems more suitable to a horror film than a present-day news report.
Despite the declaration of an African branch of ISIS taking credit for the killings and its religious tone, there has been discussion about the cause of the violence. For example, the New York Times and Al Jazeera suggest that poverty and inequality led to the attacks. This is similar to the argument that climate change is the primary source of the genocidal Fulani attacks on Christian villages in Nigeria.
Writing about the beheadings, New York Times journalist Declan Walsh quoted Sam Ratner, a contributing editor at Zitamar News. “While the militants claim to be targeting Christians, in practice they make little distinction between their victims. ISIS propaganda says they burned a Christian village or killed Christian soldiers,” Ratner said. “But on the ground, we’re not seeing a lot of differentiation between Christians and Muslims. They do not appear to be targeting churches in particular, for instance.”
It is true that northeastern Mozambique where the attacks took place is rich an oil rich region, and there is wealth to be gained through massacres and the confiscation of property. There have been attacks on oil company convoys and other petroleum-related entities. Perhaps some of the violence is indeed the work of opportunistic criminal enterprises.
In July, CBN News interviewed Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa of Mozambique’s Pemba Diocese. He described the world’s response to the atrocities that are taking place in his country and across the world as “indifference.”

In the words of Jimmy Lai, “freedom has a price.” That’s why the Chinese media mogul and activist is leaning on his Catholic faith for support as he faces potential prison time and continues the fight for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.
Speaking at the Acton Institute’s 30th anniversary virtual celebration, Lai, who runs the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper from the Chinese city, spoke about the opportunities Hong Kong gave him growing up as a reason he continues to fight for freedom.
“I came here with one dollar and the freedom here has given me the opportunity to build up myself. And the value that is underlying this freedom is so precious and that’s exactly what we are fighting for in Hong Kong now,” he said.
Lai was presented the Acton Institute’s 2020 Faith and Freedom Award for his work by the organization’s president Father Robert A. Sirico and chief executive officer Kris Alan Mauren. The Acton Institute is a Michigan-based think tank promoting free market policies undergirded by religious principles.
Sirico offered Lai a message of solidarity in recognizing him for the award. Meanwhile, high-lighting what it shows that he now faces a possible prison sentence.
“When you see a man like this, who is looking at a potential jail sentence in a Chinese cell it prompts in us a certain inspiration but also an awareness that socialism is resilient,” Sirico said. “The collectivism idea, the idea of dominating other people, that politics is the solution to our problems, power to corrupt. These are the challenges we’re facing this day in age.”
Lai was arrested with nine others in August for suspicion of colluding with foreign forces under a new Chinese security law. Police also raided the Apple Daily headquarters.
News reports at the time said he was held for forty hours and shown interviews he did with foreign media outlets as evidence of collusion. He was eventually released on bail.

With the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops holding a virtual fall assembly, the bishops of Spain are also holding their fall gathering.
On the agenda for the Spanish bishops are Europe’s rising populist currents, and a bill in Spain that threatens religious education.
In his opening speech, the conference president, Cardinal Juan Jose Omella of Barcelona, spoke of the “tensions” that society has today, due to stresses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prelate quoted a recent speech by Pope Francis to the leader of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, during his visit to Rome last month: “It’s necessary for all of us to build our nation, where the delete and start over is not permitted.”
Seeing the rising unemployment and recession in Spain but also in most of Europe, Omella said this is “not the moment for divisions, it’s not the moment to allow the irresponsible and ideological populist sprouts to sneak in. This is the moment for cohesion, for cordiality, working together, of looking to the long term, freeing ourselves from the short-termism of elections or the stock market.”
“As the Pope said, ‘ideologies sectarianize, ideologies deconstruct the homeland, they do not build, it is necessary to learn from history’,” the cardinal continued. “It’s the moment of unity and good politics, that which ensures respect for the human person and works tirelessly for the common good.”
Omella’s speech was divided in 14 points, and several times he insisted on the “urgency” to build spaces and attitudes of encounter in the political class, society as a whole and also within the Church.
The remarks are peppered with references to Francis, including to his historic Urbi et Orbi blessing on March 27.
“The square had never been so empty and perhaps it had never been so full of people following the message from every home,” Omella said. “People of different religions, beliefs and nationalities where more united than ever because of the unusual and hard experience that we are all suffering.”

In that brief inter-mezzo over the summer between what turned out to be the first and second great surges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis held a series of appropriately socially distanced, “vir-tual” conversations with his premier English-language explicator about what he believes needs to be done for the world to be better than it was before the crisis.
Through conversations held on the phone, through voice recordings and via email, Francis answered questions posed to him by British biographer Austen Ivereigh on a wide range of issues, including the death of George Floyd; clerical sexual abuse; the toppling of statues in an effort to reshape perceptions of history; protests against government coronavirus restrictions; persecuted minorities such as Christians, Yazidi, Rohingya and Uighurs; migrants and refugees; and, though the book notes “many will be irritated to hear a Pope return to the topic,” Francis discussed abortion at length too.
“I cannot stay silent over 30 to 40 million unborn lives cast aside every year through abortion,” the Pope said. “It is painful to behold how in many regions that see themselves as developed the practice is often urged because the children to come are disabled, or unplanned. Human life is never a burden.”
The Pope’s comments are included in an interview book he authored with Ivereigh, titled Let us Dream, which will hit bookstores and online shops on Dec. 1. Crux, along with other news outlets, received an advance copy.
On abuse, both sexual and abuses of power, Francis noted that social distancing has made some potential victims more susceptible to online grooming and other abuses which, as a community, “we should be watching out for and reporting.”
“In these past years, thank God, we have seen a particular awareness of these issues,” he said. “The culture of abuse, whether sexual or of power and conscience, began to be dismantled first by victims and their families, who in spite of their pain, were able to carry through their struggle for justice and help alert and heal society of this perversity.”
Francis added he “will not tire of saying with sorrow and shame, these abuses were also committed by some members of the Church.”
“In these past years we have taken important steps to stamp out abuse and to engender a culture of care to respond swiftly to accusations,” the Pope said. “Creating that culture will take time, but it is an unavoidable commitment which we must make every effort to insist on.”
Society too, Francis argued, has awaken against abuse, either through the #MeToo movement, or the many scandals “around powerful politicians, media moguls and businessmen.”

The recent report detailing the Vatican’s response to the scan-dal surrounding ex-Cardinal Theo-dore McCarrick shows why it’s a mistake to canonize Popes (or anyone) quickly after their deaths.
According to the Vatican report released, Pope John Paul II received warnings about McCarrick from Vatican officials and New York Cardinal John O’Connor in 1999. Two years later, McCarrick was installed as archbishop of Washington, D.C.  John Paul was beatified in 2011, six years after his death, and was made a saint three years later.
It’s not just Popes: The church needs more time to examine any person’s life. The people of Argentina, for example, wanted to canonize Eva Peron immediately after her death in 1952. At the time, thankfully, the mandatory waiting period before the canonization process could begin was 50 years. Though she is still revered by many Argentines, Peron’s reputation has been clouded in recent years by accusations that she and her husband harbored Nazis after World War II.
John Paul reduced the waiting period from 50 to five years, because he wanted to canonize individuals who were still relevant to today’s generation. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, waived even that for John Paul’s canonization in response to popular demand. -RNS

Pope Francis has made an impassioned plea to Christians to reach out to the poor and homeless. Speaking on the World Day of the Poor, he said it was not enough simply not to do harm. Not doing good was also not good.
“We must do good, go out of ourselves and look, look at those who are most in need. There is so much hunger, even in the heart of our cities, and many times we enter that logic of indifference: the poor are there, and we look the other way.
“Hold out your hand to the poor: it is Christ.”
The poor are at the centre of the Gospel, he continued. “It is Jesus who taught us to speak to the poor, it is Jesus who came for the poor. Hold out your hand to the poor. You have received so many things, and you let your brother, your sister starve?”
He was speaking in his Angelus address on the penulti-mate Sunday of the liturgical year.
He also criticised Christians who play “on the defensive,” sticking only to keeping the rules and keeping the commandments: “Those measured Christians who never step outside the rules, never, because they are afraid of risk. And these, allow me the image, these who take care of themselves so that they never risk, these begin in life a process of mummification of the soul, and end up with mummies.”